Heroes: Season 2, Episode 11 Review: Powerless

Powerless
Original Airdate: December 3, 2007
Writer: Jeph Loeb
Director: Alan Arkush

This finale comes at a time of great conflict in the series. The writer’s strike made the staff retool these episodes so that the final completed script before the strike would give the audience some sense of closure. Considering there is no clear idea when “Heroes” will be able to resume production, this episode is also meant to serve as a season finale. Of course that has lead to some confusion among casual viewers of the show and those otherwise not following the strike. Regardless, this may be the last taste of “Heroes” fans will get until the strike is resolved.

The subplot affected most by the strike was the virus storyline. According to director Arkush, the original ending was the vial shattering before Peter could stop time. Nathan becomes infected, collapsing during his speech in the end. The build up to this moment, including the confrontation between Hiro, Nathan and Matt against Peter, is played out well, even though it is frustrating that Peter doesn’t read Adam’s mind when he has so many people questioning Adam’s intentions with the virus. It’s disappointing to know that the plotline originally was going to go a darker route had the strike not interfered. If something can shake up the show, it would be to give the bad guys a major victory and leave our heroes trying to salvage whatever they can.

As much as Adam’s death may avert future catastrophes, Hiro couldn’t kill him. Instead he decided to inter him alive near his parents’ gravesite, which wasn’t far off from my “Alias” inspired prediction, albeit a weird choice of burial location. Of course, considering he is still alive, his return to the show is always a possibility. It may be interesting to have him come back some time down the road, where being trapped in a small space and possibly dying repeatedly due to lack of oxygen drives him absolutely crazy and he goes on a rampage with some other supervillains.

This episode also seeks to bring Sylar back to power. His scenes with Mohinder were great to watch, particularly in the prologue where Maya was still clueless as to what Sylar’s true motivations were. Now that Maya is safe with Mohinder, one can hope her storyline will improve as well since it is no longer isolated from the rest of the action. Maybe Elle’s accidental heroic gesture will also play into their dynamic.

Obviously the confrontation between Mohinder and Sylar was meant to show Maya the truth, although I think Molly could’ve simply told her that Sylar brutally murdered her parents in addition to telling her what happened to Alejandro. It’s hard to write about Maya’s character as we’ve been given little reason to care about her. Hopefully now that she’s involved with the main characters (and hopefully won’t be doing the same storyline every episode) things with her may become interesting, but the court of public opinion may have already spoken for her.

Elle’s attempt to get on her father’s good side marks a turning point in her character. Bennet recently shattered the image she had of her father and in this episode details the cruel extremes Bob went to test how powerful she was. However, Elle doesn’t have much of a sense of self aside from getting the approval of her father. That changes when she tries to bag Sylar and gains the admiration of Mohinder, Maya and Molly. For once in her life she used her powers for, albeit unintentional, selfless reasons and she clearly liked being called a hero. It would be a smart bet to see her trying to continue that feeling.

One can hope that West will fade away and never be seen, heard or referred to again. He has been a misfire since day one, and only appeared not to be a raging sociopath in episode nine. By then, the damage was done, both for the character’s standing and Claire’s personal life. If they ever try romantic subplots again, this subplot should be held as exactly what not to do.

Bennet’s return to The Company is rather hard to believe. Neither side has any reason to trust the other. Bennet is only playing ball with The Company to keep Claire safe, and he has no assurance that The Company won’t dispose of him for what he did in season one. What they hope to get out this match up may be interesting, but hopefully won’t reset his character to season one. Ironically, Bennet being alive would’ve been enough to keep Claire quiet.

Nathan’s assassination comes as a mess of contrivance. While the writers wanted to get the message out that they were retooling the finale to fit the strike, this comes off as a rushed effort to get some sense of closure before the indefinite hiatus. Some people tore apart Nathan’s speech as being excessively cheesy, but the real problem with this is the montage during it. It would’ve helped if he had actually witnessed all the events in this. Since he’s talking about the things he’s experienced and how they changed his life, why show stuff that happened thousands of miles (or hundreds of years) from where he was?

Also, it’s never said, but did they bother to collect anything else in that safe after the virus was irradiated? It seems like that would be their smartest bet, as having hard evidence of The Company’s crimes in a safe place would make any assassination attempt moot, especially if they did the typical scene where they confront the bad guys and warn them if “so much as a hair gets touched” then their buddy will release it to the public.

Some suspect that Bennet was the gunman behind the hit, doing it to make up for his actions against The Company. While that has a lot of dramatic potential, especially where Claire is involve, it seems more likely that whoever shot Nathan had powers. How else could he have gotten close enough to Nathan in a crowded police station, pointed and fired a gun (not a long distance sniper rifle) and walked away without getting tackled like any other gunman has?

Ultimately, Peter has become powerful enough that he could override any obstacle the writers placed in front of him. He had at least 5 ways to get inside the safe and retrieve the virus, but instead chose the most time consuming and strength taking method. Then in the end he could’ve used several powers to detect Nathan’s assassin and stop it before it could happen. While Peter has never been portrayed as smart the longer he continues not to use the logical power in his arsenal, the stupider he becomes (at least he knew nuking the virus was the best way to destroy it). After a prolonged period of having powers, it would make sense that he would know which ones to use in whatever situation he found himself in. Giving him amnesia was the way to keep him in check for the first half of this volume, but what are they going to do now?

Sylar was in a similar predicament going into this season. Their method of dealing with Sylar’s threatening array of powers was to neuter him by afflicting him with the strain that inhibits powers, having him menace on a smaller scale. Now that he is back to his old self, added to the fact that the third volume is called “Villains”, one could only think that he will be a major force in the second half of the season, whenever that airs.

Unfortunately, the New Orleans storyline remains the odd plot out. Saving Monica is insignificant compared to the virus. For a character who can mimic martial arts and wrestling moves, to be the victim feels forced to give Niki and Micah something to do while Mohinder deals with Sylar. If only they had developed another major scenario in New Orleans, then maybe they could have a chance, but sadly it’s not meant to be. In the end, Niki is presumably blown up and we have little reason to care. Yes, Ali Larter is attractive, but the Sanders/Hawkins storyline should’ve been left behind when season one ended.

As the season stands, the average stands at just above 7. It’s not as bad as some have said, but it’s dead average. For a show that continually brought high octane popcorn entertainment last season, this is discouraging. I’ll go in depth into the faults of this volume and how it can be fixed in a future review, but one can only hope that the writers during the strike think long and hard about their errors and come back strong when the strike is resolved.

Overall Score: 7/10